


Parental Guidance Recommended

by julien (julie)



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1996-01-01
Updated: 1996-01-01
Packaged: 2020-09-26 05:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20384497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/julien
Summary: Well, I  wondered…what would their fathers think  of Ray and Fraser being lovers?





	Parental Guidance Recommended

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes:** I don’t know whether Vecchio Snr and Fraser Snr were really ghosts, or if they’re simply (complexly) part of their respective son’s psyche (I tended towards the latter interpretation), but either way here’s my version of the answer. 
> 
> **Warnings:** Ray Vecchio's father was _not_ a nice man. 
> 
> **First published:** 1 January 1996 in my zine Pure Maple Syrup

# Parental Guidance Recommended 

♦

‘You’ve turned into a fairy, Raymond.’

‘Oh, _this_ I need,’ Ray commented with great sarcasm. He glanced into the rear-view mirror to see his father sitting in the back seat of the Riviera, looking as tragically dismayed as a full-blooded Italian could. Why did the guy always have to turn up while Ray was alone on a stake out, with no escape or rescue for hours? Five years dead, and his father refused to rest in peace. ‘Should have got you one of those enormous granite slabs,’ Ray muttered, ‘instead of a nice neat little headstone.’

The man would not be diverted. ‘What went wrong? My son turns into a nancy boy, a queer. What did I do wrong?’

‘What did you do wrong? God, where do I start? You were the worst father a kid ever had.’ 

‘Raymond –’

But the anger in him spilled over. ‘You should be burning in hell right now for what you did to us.’

‘So it’s my fault you turned out this way.’

Ray was torn. ‘It makes you miserable, right? OK, then it’s all your fault. I hope you suffer for a hundred eternities.’

‘I will, don’t you worry about that.’

‘Damn it,’ Ray muttered. Feeling he’d just betrayed the finer things in life, Ray relented and said, ‘It only makes you miserable because you think it’s wrong. But it’s not wrong, it’s no one’s _fault_. I’m happy, Dad. If you can’t be happy for me, that’s your problem.’

‘Of course it’s wrong. It’s sinful. A man belongs with a woman, a family. Children, Raymond, you’ll never have children. If you want to sow your wild oats, go ahead, married or not – but _women_, son. Be a man about it.’

‘You know what? I am a man, and there’s other men I’ve been with. Fucked with. And I probably did it because I knew it would disgust you if you found out, I knew it would get you angry. Well, amongst other reasons. I mean, it was no hardship for me.’ Ray met his father’s gaze through the medium of the rear-view mirror, but then looked through the windshield again before adding, ‘I like women, if that helps you feel any better. But it’s always been good for me, being with a man.’

‘So there’s no hope. You’re committed to this perverse life. You’ll join me in hell when you die.’

‘Now, there’s a threat.’ He considered this, and waited for the man’s gaze to meet his again. ‘I don’t think so, actually. Love isn’t a sin, Dad.’

_‘Love?’_ his father repeated, apparently feeling the word had no place in this conversation. ‘Think of the shame you bring to your family. Think of your poor mother.’

‘Oh, I _do_ think of her, Dad. It’s you that never did – though why should I expect you to start now that you’re dead?’ Ray shook his head. ‘She’s fine about it. She’s even happy for me, and she adores Benny. Well, everyone does. Why don’t you go haunt him for a while, and you’ll see. Everyone falls under his spell sooner or later.’

A shudder was the only reaction to that idea.

Ray thought for a while, and then tried to explain about the bereaved Vecchio family. ‘I guess you made our lives so miserable that once you died we really started looking at our priorities. It was like a second chance, it was like finding a little freedom. And being happy became really important to us. So if there’s something I want with all my heart, Ma will approve of it, no matter what.’

Silence. Finally his father leaned forward, and said with some strength of feeling, ‘I’m forced to haunt you, I never told you that before. It’s not something I want to do, Raymond, it’s what I have to do. But maybe it’s for the sake of saving you, maybe I need to save you from this terrible sin. _That_ gives me reason.’

‘Oh great,’ Ray commented, his life stretching long before him. ‘Well, I’m not giving up Benny, Dad, so I guess you’ve got decades to berate me.’ He let out a humourless laugh. ‘You’re not in purgatory at all, are you? This is your idea of heaven.’

‘No, this isn’t heaven, son, knowing what you and that Canadian get up to. It’s disgusting.’

Absently, Ray responded, ‘Yeah, and they’re meant to be such _nice_ polite harmless people…’ Something occurred to him, and he turned around in his seat to say it. ‘Maybe you have to haunt me until _I_ save _you_, did you think of that? This is your chance to really love me, to forgive me, to show a little grace. To forgive yourself, Dad.’

The man shook his head, and sat back, barely even willing to listen to the idea.

Ray turned to face the front again, letting out a sigh. ‘You know what, Dad?’ he said quietly. ‘Me and Benny, it’s got nothing to do with you. I’m not doing it to make you miserable, or to get you angry. I’m doing it because I love him, and believe it or not he loves me too, and that’s all. It’s good between us, Dad, and nothing else really matters very much. Can you understand any of that?’

Silence.

The back seat was empty. Ray looked up into the rear-view mirror, then turned around to confirm the fact. He settled uneasily, looked about him. It had been a long while since Ray had wished, every time the man disappeared, that his father was gone for good. A long long time since he’d given up that hope. And whether Ray was meant to save his father’s soul, or his father was meant to save his son’s, it would obviously be a long long time before this was over.

♦

‘Hello, son,’ Robert Fraser said from the shadows in the kitchen.

‘Ah. Dad.’ Stranded halfway to his bed, Benton Fraser turned and nodded to his father in greeting. Then he couldn’t help but look over at the front door – Ray had just closed it behind him on the way out. They had kissed a loving farewell before the cop left. A quite passionate farewell, actually, as their kisses were inevitably both thorough and involving. ‘How long have you been here?’

‘Long enough, son.’

‘So you saw that.’ Fraser nodded, crossed his arms. ‘You know.’

‘I know about you and Detective Vecchio.’

‘Ah.’ A long pause. ‘Do you remember the first thing you ever said to me about him? You said how quick he was, how observant. He’s a good police officer, Dad.’

‘Yes, he is.’

‘He pretends to be cool, he thinks it’s tough to annoy people, but once you get to know him –’

‘You don’t have to defend your choice to me, Benton.’

‘Don’t I?’ Fraser lifted a hand to his brow, briefly massaged his right temple. His father was, as usual, in his full dress reds, while Fraser was merely in jeans and a casual sweater. ‘You know, I’ve been reading your journals, trying to find something that would indicate what you thought.’

‘About homosexuality? You found nothing to guide you.’

‘No.’

‘You’ve made your choice, son, you’ve chosen your life partner. He’s a good man, but you already know that. What else is there to say?’

‘I’d like to know if we have your blessing.’

‘No doubt you would, but you’re on your own with this one, Benton. I have no wisdom with which to help you. You tell me.’

Fraser shrugged a little, hugged his crossed arms even closer to his chest. ‘It’s love, Dad. We love each other. We’re friends before all else, and partners, and – lovers. It’s just worked out this way, that I’m with a man. I never expected this, but I suppose that’s the way it happens.’

‘That’s the way what happens?’

‘Love. You can’t plan for it. No, it just enters you from on high, and blazes from you like the purest light, and nothing is ever quite the same. Everything changes, everything is transformed, the world becomes even more beautiful than it was.’ He paused, thoughtful. ‘You know, the last time I felt love, that light kept me warm, kept us both alive. This time – I don’t know. This time maybe it’s bringing joy into a life that deserves it, bringing joy and grace to a man who couldn’t ask for it. He thinks so little of himself, Dad.’

‘Oh,’ Robert Fraser said, ‘I think you and Ray Vecchio both deserved joy you couldn’t ask for.’

Fraser frowned at that, and put the idea aside for future thought. ‘Love,’ he continued. ‘It’s pure. There’s something profoundly simple about it, though Ray tries to make everything complicated. It’s completely without volition, though I’d choose nothing else. I love him.’

‘Yes, that does sound like love.’

‘Is that what it was like for you?’

‘You’ve read my journals now, son.’

‘You were quite the writer,’ Fraser said. But there had been so little in the volumes about his father’s feelings for wife and family.

‘And you have a little piece of poetry in you.’ The ghost or the vision – or the figment of Fraser’s imagination – walked to the door and opened it. ‘Good night, son.’

‘Good night, Dad.’ He added at the last moment, ‘Thank you. For letting me make my own decision.’

‘That’s all right, Benton. That’s the way it should be.’ His father stepped out, closing the door behind him. And then the man’s voice floated back from an eerie distance – ‘But of course you have our blessing.’

Fraser smiled, and headed for his bed.

♦


End file.
